… Hawaii’s lieutenant governor still says that they’re working towards opening up travel to/from the mainland with testing. From his summary video on June 10, he said,
“You all know we’re going to open up interisland travel on the 16th [of June] but we’re working towards a month later opening up Hawaii with a test. So, testing on the mainland, working with CVS, that would give us some extra layer of protection.”
You can watch his full summary video here:
In the above video, Lt. Gov. Green doesn’t explicitly say that they’re working towards reopening with testing in mid-July, but it could be inferred. This aligns with a segment/article from KHON on June 9 in which Lt. Gov. Green says he’s pushing to have this testing process in place by July 15, but the governor will make the decision.
On June 10 at Gov. Ige’s press conference, he announced the extension of the trans-Pacific traveler quarantine through July 31, 2020. You can watch the press conference on the following video. (The first 12 minutes of the video cover the points that are most pertinent for out-of-state and international travelers.)
The governor said,
“Certainly, we continue to look for opportunities to invite guests from out of state. We will be working through and finding solutions that allows us to bring travelers from out of state back to the state of Hawaii in a safe and secure manner. So, stay tuned. We anticipate being able to provide more details on when we will restore trans-Pacific travel to the islands.”
He went on to mention new, multi-layered processes in very general terms. The processes include temperature and health screenings, COVID-19 testing and safe travel corridors. (A travel corridor in this context is an opening of travel between two destinations with similar, low rates of COVID-19 infections.)
As far as the travel corridors, Gov. Ige mentions the potential of opening corridors with Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia. As far as mainland states that could be considered with a travel corridor, he mentions Alaska, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.
Are Hawaii’s governor and lieutenant governor on the same page and working towards the same goals and timelines? It’s possible, but we’re going to have to wait and see.
On this same topic, it’s worth noting that the interisland quarantine was originally set to extend through June 30 and will instead be lifted on June 16. So, it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that the quarantine for out-of-state travelers could be lifted sooner than the new extension of July 31 with new procedures.
